


blanket fort forte and other Stilinski talents

by Siriusstuff



Series: Teodor Claudius Talan Stilinski-Hale [11]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, Married Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Parenthood, talk of anchors and eyebrows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 17:25:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5013487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siriusstuff/pseuds/Siriusstuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The human parent of a werewolf child is always learning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blanket fort forte and other Stilinski talents

The little sock was a strange sight in the doorway. It hadn’t been there before, Derek was sure, though he’d been so deeply focused, since after breakfast, he’d been oblivious to any shenanigans.

He’d hardly spoken during breakfast but Stiles recognized when Derek’s quiet was from inner focus on something like a design idea. When the same thing happened to Stiles Derek always respected it.

Fortunately it never happened to both of them at the same time—which was a very good thing, considering in the household was a three-year old not exactly able to fend for himself while his dads were in the zone.

So after breakfast Derek had excused himself, retreating to his office to work. He was aware Stiles had come in, leaving him a thermos of tea, a sandwich, a pear. He’d heard Teo’s laugh once or twice. When finally he’d sat back, stretched his arms, looked around, there was the little sock.

Leaving his chair he walked over and picked it up. From there he could see another sock, a big one, where the stairs began.

That sock had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle faces all over it.

Halfway down the stairs was another small sock, and at the foot the other TMNT sock.

From there Derek saw in the living room the most complicated, sprawling blanket fort ever.

Derek was the architect in the family but Stiles was the blanket fort engineer extraordinaire.

“Congrats on locating us, Daddy,” came Stiles’s voice from within it.

“Wasn’t _far_ —and the sock trail—” Derek started to say.

“Wasn’t _far_?” Stiles broke in scoffing, still unseen. “You’re in _interplanetary space_ , Daddy! We are _millions and millions_ of miles from Earth!”

Derek heard Teo giggle before popping into view.

“We’re in a spayship, Daddy!”

“Really, Tay.” Derek grinned. “I was looking for a _blanket fort_ —that’s why it took me so long to find your spaceship!”

Then Stiles looked out, beside Teo.

“It’s a space ship _and_ a blanket fort— _and_ a pirate ship, too,” he pointed out.

Derek looked for a place to sit but there was nothing available, the fort was so extensive, incorporating most of the living room furniture. Stiles lifted a blanket wall high and gestured for Derek to crawl inside.

“First we buried our treasure chest in Dead Man’s Cove, then—what did we do, Captain Teo?”

“We tafeated the crackin.”

“Kraken?”

“Heck of a lot easier for the captain to pronounce than _cthulhu_.—But, we _did_ add ‘defeat’ to our vocabulary today.”

“Very good!” Derek applauded. “How’d you defeat the kraken, Tay?”

“Oh—”

“I scared it, Daddy!”

“Apparently krakens are _terrified_ of young wolves, Daddy. Surprised you didn’t hear the roars.”

“Sorry.”

Stiles shrugged. “Though now I think I’m typecast as defenseless prey of sea monsters—space monsters too.”

“And _how’d_ we get to outer space?”

“When the Royal Navy started chasing us, the captain suggested we escape to outer space. Of course.”

Derek stretched out on the floor, noting that all the kitchen chairs made up framework of the fort. Stiles yawned and lay down beside Derek. Teo clambered around till he was resting half on Derek.

“Turns out there are kraken in outer space too,” Stiles informed. “Who knew?”

After a yawn Derek replied, “Been quite an afternoon down here.”

“Crackins wanted to eat Papa.—I scared ‘em away. Wit’ my roarh!”

“With his roar. And his fangs. And his claws.—And that reminds me.” Stiles waited a beat. “When you and your sisters and brothers played, would you—wolf out?”

“All the time,” Derek assured. “It’s a way to learn control.” He paused. “Unless we got _out_ of control, then mom or dad would—intervene.” He paused again. “Sometimes mom had to go alpha on us.”

“Ah, sweet werewolf childhood memories!—But, yes, the captain wolfed out fighting krakens the second or third time.”

“That—upset you?”

“No. He’d stay wolfed out until he’d defeated the kraken.—Teo-wolf was out strictly for kraken-defeating purposes.—When he’d look at me he was the very same child probably drooling on your shirt right now.”

Derek’s eyes tipped down to his son lying half on his chest. Teo was looking right back at him.

“He’s wide awake.”

“M’wide ‘wake, Papa!”

Teo shifted his head so Stiles could see the proof himself.

Derek started combing his fingers through Teo’s hair while with his voice low he told Stiles how meaningful it was their three year old werewolf child could shift the way Stiles said Teo did, calling out his wolf at will and then sending it back within.

Just lying next to him Stiles heard or imagined he heard how Derek’s voice sounded through his chest. When Stiles looked up he saw Teo, the formerly wide-awake, obviously asleep on top of it.

With a soft laugh Stiles claimed, “It’s like you made him fall asleep.”

Still softly stroking fingertips through Teo’s toddler mane, Derek’s response was, “I know.”

Stiles knew there was something coming after that “I know,” but he turned, intent to find a different position where he could see both Teo’s sleeping face and Derek’s together.

Derek was flat on the floor, his eyes closed. Teo’s head was at about his sternum and he still faced Stiles’s direction.

Pale skin and fragile bone don’t come with any clout but sarcasm makes an efficient weapon. Stiles loved his prickly self, which had served him well through school years and even into his present life. But he knew and a few—a _very_ few—others knew deep down he was a sap-head who cried at movies, _certain_ movies; who once had been relatively invulnerable to most varieties of cuteness unless it came in the form of kittens. Kittens always rendered Stiles into a goo puddle.

Enter Teodor. From then on Stiles had little to no resistance whatsoever to _cute_.

A photo of his son there sleeping on his husband would have been perfect but the effort to find his phone would no doubt ruin the moment. So Stiles decided to just remember the sight forever. He wouldn’t stop looking.

Only a few seconds passed before he was lost in his bubble of family serenity.

“You’re his anchor.” Derek’s voice was firm despite coming from his languid position. Stiles had thought Derek was asleep so when he spoke Stiles jolted.

Whether Teo had been startled too Stiles didn’t know but since the kid was still sleeping, probably not. Derek’s hand still rested on Teo, so werewolf sleep-mojo was likely at work.

“Did you hear me?” Derek asked.

“Huh, did you _not_ notice me putting my skin back on?— _Yes_ , I heard you. And aren’t you his anchor too?”

“Between wolves,” Derek muttered, “it’s different.”

There was a time that kind of utterance would have earned Derek an eye roll meant to harm the intended recipient. Stiles had read so many bestiaries only Derek’s status as a born wolf held Stiles back from asserting that _he_ knew more werewolf lore than Derek. Yet even with all Stiles had read Derek was always telling him something new, some werewolf quirk never heard of before.

“You’re saying you can’t be his anchor? He shifts back and forth with you too.”

“Stiles, you anchor him to his human side. The way you described it, the _way_ you said it, ‘When he looked at me he was human.’ That could be an anchor’s motto.”

Stiles was keeping quiet, his focus inward. But Derek was sure he still listened.

“How much did Teo shift today?” he asked.

“Remember his first full moon run with the pack? He was even more shifted _today_. I saw muzzle—and fangs, Derek—I didn’t know he got _fangs_ like that—he’s hardly got all his human teeth!”

“Stiles, the point is—his wolf was out and when he turned to look at you again his wolf was _not_ out.”

“Yeah?”

“ _Anchor_.”

Stiles returned to lying shoulder to shoulder alongside Derek, now with their faces close. They stuck out their lips and kissed, but Stiles was still with his thoughts.

“Probably it was inevitable,” Stiles mused.

“Finding an anchor isn’t guaranteed,” Derek replied. This was a serious matter but meanwhile Derek couldn’t quash his werewolf-parental pride imagining how practiced and adept at keeping his wolf compliant Teo would become, if at three he was already starting.

“What’s guaranteed is,” Stiles intoned from a completely different mood, “he’ll find other ones.”

Derek turned his head to kiss wherever he could reach on Stiles’s face, and because Stiles had sounded wistful and somber, “You’ll always be _my_ only one,” he reminded him.

Teo started waking with his dads getting snuggly.

“Let Captain Teo wake up, so he doesn’t nod off in his stew,” Stiles proposed.

Talia Hale had given them a large pot of Hale Stew, which was beef stew but from one of those “old family recipes,” which made it Hale. That would be supper. It was a favorite of Derek’s and even Teo, with assistance, always ate all of his. But Stiles could already visualize Teo falling asleep in his bowl of Hale Stew if he wasn’t roused back to consciousness well before.

Derek had sat up and was keeping Teo upright, striving for that goal, when he inquired of Stiles where exactly they were going to eat, considering all of their usual seats were holding up the blanket fort.

“I guess I’ll just have to tear it down,” Stiles sighed.

“Don’t think ‘destruction’; think ‘design modification,’” Derek recommended.

“Funny.” Stiles stood and started gathering blankets, putting back furniture in its place. “Little help ’modifying’?” he asked Derek. Then to Teo: “Are you aware we’ve returned to planet Earth, Captain?”

Teo appeared not aware of anything much.

“We may have also traveled through time,” Stiles mumbled.

Teo was sitting up, though still slowly blinking. Something about his sullen face prodded Stiles’s memory.

“Derek!” He only pointed at Teo with a bobbing finger as he continued, “When he shifted so much today I only got a glimpse of his face. He has the famous Hale brow. But unlike _you_ he _still has eyebrows!”_

Derek’s response was a kind of blank look.

“Did you start out with eyebrows and then experience eyebrow pattern baldness?” Stiles wondered.

“ _No_.”

Derek pondered. “I don’t think I’ve ever had them when I shift. I didn’t spend a lot of time in front of mirrors when wolfed out.”

Stiles ignored an opportunity for a snarky retort. “Then why would Teo-wolf have eyebrows?” is all he said.

Derek shrugged, “Well, half his genetics come from you.”

Derek’s response was the crucial information but neither he nor Stiles were going to find their answer that night.

Instead, while dinner heated, the blanket fort was designed-modified into non-existence.

“You should join us on our next space pirates adventures, Daddy,” Stiles suggested as the living room was at last restored to its usual fortless configuration.

“You can be the kraken,” he quipped.

Derek quipped back, “Does that mean you’re the captive prince offered up to satisfy the kraken’s insatiable appetite?”

“Don’t get any weird ideas, Mr. Kraken. Just wait till you meet my defender!”

 

**Coda**

Teo’s eyebrows did not become a hot topic until the full moon run he shifted even closer to full beta-form, and that’s when everyone saw them though Stiles alone turned them into pack business.

He didn’t understand why no one could see how reasonable his question was: _If Derek doesn’t have eyebrows when he’s shifted, why does Teo?_

Stiles could swear Talia Hale was looking at him like she never had before. He wasn’t scared, because it wasn’t a threatening look.

Stiles just didn’t know it was how Talia Hale looked when questioning internally how Stiles could be so dense.

“Stiles,” she began, “Teodor is Derek’s child, and he’s _your_ child.”

Would Stiles muster the patience if Talia launched into a Socratic dialogue instead of getting to the point ASAP?

“Am I missing something?” Stiles asked, then affirmed: “I’m missing something.”

“You’re thinking only _werewolf/human_. What about _Derek/Stiles_?”

“Talia, what—”

“What would _Stiles_ look like as a werewolf?”

Whether Stiles was coming to realization or not, Talia answered her own Zen koan with a gesture towards Teo where he, quite perfectly human looking, played with his cousins and the pack’s other pups.

Stiles formulated his revelation this way: “Teo-wolf looks like what I’d look like if I were a werewolf.—I’d have eyebrows!”

Derek was smiling at Stiles but Stiles was certain Derek’s smile had nothing to do with learning the nature of shifted Teodor’s eyebrows. After the run Derek had put on only his jeans. His bare feet and bare torso distracted Stiles mercilessly but what really riveted his attention was the post-run endorphin and hormone glaze in Derek’s eyes.

Post-run-endorphin-and-hormone-glazed over Derek was _so good_ in bed—or… wherever.

Stiles got up close to Derek’s ear. Aware that teasing him in this state was neither fun nor prudent, Stiles’s intent was only to inform his mate.

“So Teo’s gonna sleep in the puppy pile tonight.”

Derek was just watching Stiles’s mouth move.

Stiles continued, significantly less focused, “We can… have a room… on the third floor.”

“ _Or_ ,” Derek growled, drawing Stiles closer, “We can fuck in the forest.”

“Maybe if it was still summer…”

But Stiles was delivered from having to find a gentle way to say what he was looking for that night didn’t include pinecones pinching his ass or pebbles embedding themselves in his knees. At that moment pack kids began drifting to the stairs. Teo seemed magnetized to stick with them. Derek and Stiles joined the drift.

Extended goodnight hugs and scent-marking delayed everyone’s ascent.

When Stiles mentioned Teo’s pillows and extra blankets still in the car, Derek left to retrieve them.

One of the second floor bedrooms had mattresses and sleeping bags on its floor, liberally strewn with pillows and blankets. Teo picked a spot—randomly if you asked Stiles—and his dads spread a blanket there. He was on his way to sleep as soon as he laid his head to his pillow.

After a few pack run nights with Teo participating, nights that concluded in puppy piles, the boy learned how the pack bond could make him feel so safe and so happy. It was OK that his dads wouldn’t be in the next room. He’d know exactly where they slept in that big house.

With Derek stretched out and looking on Stiles floated in another reverie. He stroked a finger, without pressure, over one of his little son’s eyebrows. Derek’s fingertips were touching the small of Stiles’s back.

The Hale pack’s human and wolf youngsters, joined by pups from families not Hale but in the pack, were crowding the room by then. Stiles and Derek were taking up precious sleeping space, so it was time to go. Teo, asleep, probably didn’t notice his dads’ goodnight kisses.

Before they’d got out the door though they saw Laura’s twins, Adam and Alana, each lay down one on each side of their younger cousin. They jostled and thrashed around getting settled and Teo slept on, unperturbed.

As soon as they were out of sight of any young ones, Stiles and Derek clinched, kissing hungrily. Stiles was resigned to no privacy when amongst the wolves, but he was also becoming more of a wolf himself, he suspected, because he’d stopped caring. That night he’d danced around the bonfire, been part of a wild game of chase (with the pups, so g-rated.) He’d run with Derek, Teo on his shoulders, too (though had short-cut his own way back.)

Stiles didn’t know whether he was experiencing an endorphin high but he was definitely riding a hormone one. Derek felt more solid and Stiles suddenly felt buoyant. He proved it by coming up off the floor. Derek moved forward; Stiles wrapped his legs round Derek’s waist and was aware of nothing but Derek’s scent and feel and taste till he fell into a bed with his wolfman husband.

The moon shone high overhead and was _so_ bright. Teo had climbed to a hill top, his daddy and papa behind him, somewhere. The moonlight made the ground look blue and the tree-shadows sharp and black. Other wolves came loping up the hill, all around Teo. Wolves with four legs. Teo’s pack. One pointed her muzzle to the night sky and howled and then all the other wolves around Teo howled, too, and then Teo heard another howl join in and then he recognized that the new howl was his own.


End file.
